ALBANY - Two police officers saved a three-year-old from an early morning Sunday fire on Third Avenue.

Police spokesman Steve Smith said a group of officers arrived on scene and found the boy's mother outside, crying hysterically that her son was inside on the third floor and she couldn't reach him.

Two officers, Tim Adalian and Nicholas Schuler, tried to enter the front door but were driven back by the fire, Smith said.

Two others, Sgt. Chris Cornell and Officer Josh Sears, went up the fire escape and found neighbors who were trying to find the boy.

The pair could hear the boy crying and began shouting and shining their flashlights to draw him closer to them. Cornell went in and found the boy near the door to the fire escape. He was able to hand the boy to the neighbors who were trying to help, Smith said.

The boy and the two officers who saved him were taken to the hospital and treated for smoke inhalation. The boy was otherwise unharmed, Smith said. The officers are expected to be fine too.

The fire was the second serious fire the fire department battled on Sunday morning. An earlier fire on Bradford Street damaged several buildings and displaced 40 people.

The Third Avenue fire displaced 14 people, according to the Albany Fire Department.